Emails from Pegasus
by Altaria Volante
Summary: There are times when all you want to do is type ‘The Farmers are coming to get us!’ – even if you know you can’t. Tag 2.17 Coup d'Etat Major Lorne, Dr. Lindsay.


A/N: Written for the sgasecondary challenge on LJ with a prompt asking for Dr. Lindsay, the botonist on Lorne's team in 2.17_ Coup d'Etat_

* * *

_Dear Mike, _

I should say 'wish you were here' but that'd be a lie. I wish I wasn't here. I did something bad and I think I might've killed someone

Dr. Heather Lindsay scowled at the computer screen as she attempted to type a message for her brother. How many ways could she say that she might have gotten her entire team killed on an alien planet in another galaxy by not even the people from that planet, but by renegades from another planet whom we'd pissed off a year ago? Not that many, she decided as she erased the sentences for a third time. Even if the messages didn't go through the SGC and their black crossing out ink of doom, Mike wouldn't believe her. He'd tell her that she's sniffed one too many fertilizers and maybe she should consider moving back home and working at the family nursery.

That had been an awful argument back at home. It was always assumed that everyone would work at the nursery growing up, go off to college and either study horticulture or business, and come back to run the family nursery. Been in the family three generations, her father was fond of telling anyone who'd listen. And Mike and Ashley had done just that, her older brother studying horticulture and her older sister studying business. But Heather had wanted more than that. She loved her plants, but there had to be something more out there than the Lindsay Family Nursery and Plant Supply out in the backwoods of Cordova, Maryland. They'd attributed her need to leave as the youngest child acting out for attention, with just a hint of youthful indiscretion. She'd be back, her parents said. Lindsays always come back.

A Ph.D. in Crop Management and Protection from Maryland and a shiny new job in another galaxy and she still hadn't gone back. They said that something about her dissertation ideas about full season double-crop systems leading to sustainable growth in multiple regions sparked their interest about applications trans-galactically.

She was pretty sure she hadn't heard the 'trans-galactically' part when she said yes to whatever they offered.

But now she was here. Five months, six days being here. She'd made a point to write her brother Mike most everyday, even if they did get sent in a batch and he ended up with a whole inbox full of them instead of the one-a-day she was intending. That was okay. Most days were filled with 'I met a wonderful group of people today. They're doing really interesting things with something that resembles our soybeans' and 'You would think that no one had heard of fertilizer before!' and 'Botonists – they think they know everything!'

This was the first time she didn't know what to say. 'I might have killed the entire off-world team' or maybe 'My very attractive group leader told me to call for back-up and I didn't quite do it fast enough' or how about 'In this area of the universe, farmers aren't really farmers, but apparently are all involved in secret or not-so-secret societies bent on killing us all.'

None of them quite had a ring to it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door chime, and with a grumble she saved her pathetic attempt at an email and turned in her chair just in time for the door to slide open and reveal one very alive and intact group leader. "Major!" she exclaimed. "You're not dead!"

Lorne shook his head, trying not to laugh at her enthusiasm for his narrowly avoided demise. "Not this time. Glad to see you got back okay."

She nodded vehemently. "You said to go back to the stargate and radio for help and that's exactly what I did. And then there was the loud sound and I didn't know what was going on-"

"It's alright, Lindsay," Lorne chuckled again. "You don't have to give me the run through. The colonel tells me that Teyla and Ronon already gave you one."

"And I'd prefer not to ever do that again, major," she sighed. "Ronon's not the… friendliest…" she trailed off.

"Just doing his job," he replied, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing his arms casually. "But everything's fine. Everyone made it back. You did a good job, Lindsay."

"Thank you, major," she replied, blushing slightly at the compliment. "I-I tried to do everything that you told me to."

"And you did fine," Lorne repeated. "So what are you up to now?"

"Oh, me?" she said, needing a moment to remember what she was doing before Lorne poked into her quarters. "I, uh, well I was writing a few emails. To my brother, Mike. He lives in Maryland," she added, cursing herself for not having anything witty to say.

"You… you do know that we don't have email here, right?" Lorne asked, grinning slightly. "The long distance charges would be a bitch," he chuckled.

She flushed again. "Oh! Oh, I know. I just… okay, so if I'm typing it and so I just call it email even if I know I'm just going to put it all on a disk and they'll print them out and do whatever the government does with letters and things like that so… I mean, I just call them email cause, you know… typed… and all…" she trailed off lamely.

"Yeah, it's a pain the hoops you have to jump through for letters from the military," Lorne agreed, uncrossing his arms and standing straight once again. "Hey, listen, the rest of the team is going to grab some dinner. You want some?"

She grinned suddenly. "Yeah. Yeah, just let me finish this and I'll be right there."

"Alright," Lorne said, giving her a quick wave as he stepped back through the doorway. "We'll see you in a minute."

She didn't breathe again until the door slid closed and she slumped down into her seat with a happy sigh. _Dear Mike,_ she started again, the words coming much easily this time. _I had the most wonderful day out in the middle of nowhere…_


End file.
